For some time now, it has been a commercial practice in the processing of meat products to inject basting material into the meat. For the most part, poultry have been so treated to render the meat more juicy and tasty. However, the basting material often used in processing such fowl include various ingredients such as glycerides, salts, polysorbate, artificial color and flavorings, oils, and other materials which many find unwholesome, unappetizing and unhealthy. Thus, it is often impossible to purchase meats processed with such wholesome basting material as butter and the like. Furthermore, in the commercial processing of self-basting poultry, it is most often the practice to inject the basting material into the body portion of the fowl and not into the legs or wings thereof. As a result, while the breast or white meat of the bird may be satisfactorily pre-basted, the wings and legs may be rendered overly dry by cooking.
With regard to other meats, such as beef, pork, wild game and the like, the less expensive cuts of such meat and wild game often tend to be overly dry and tough. Heretofore, such cuts of meat in a pre-basted form have been unavailable. Therefore, a device by which one can baste, marbleize or tenderize such meat prior to the cooking thereof would be desirable. While apparatus with which meat can be basted prior to cooking are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,674,179 to Harrington, 3,507,207 to Rogers et al and 3,814,077 to Lumby et al, such apparatus were generally developed for the commercial processing of meat and due to such factors as lack of compactness and economy, are unsuitable for domestic use. While U.S. Pat. No. 2,887,035 to De Seversky discloses a device for injecting seasoning into meat either prior or subsequent to cooking, this device is adapted for the insertion of cut, dried seasoning rather than the injection of a fluid such as basting material into the meat.
It is, therefore, a principal object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for domestic use in injecting any desired liquid such as basting material and tenderizer into poultry, wild game, and meats of various types.
It is another object of the present invention to provide such an apparatus which is economical in construction, light in weight and capable of one handed operation.
It is another object of the present invention to provide such an apparatus which may be employed to inject a liquid suspension of spices into meat.
It is another object of the present invention to provide such an apparatus with such versatility as to enable a user thereof to inject controlled amounts of basting material and the like uniformly throughout various cuts of meat or fowl.
It is another object to provide such an apparatus which does not require high air pressure, hot water or refrigeration in its operation as do prior art commercial apparatus of a like nature.
It is another object to provide such an apparatus which is easily disassembled for cleaning.